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I just looked for an approximately similar trip in terms of distance and dates in Germany. On Monday morning Nov 15, you could take a train from Munich to Heide

I just looked for an approximately similar trip in terms of distance and dates in Germany. On Monday morning Nov 15, you could take a train from Munich to Heidelberg starting at 23.90 euros (one way), while the first-class ticket (one way) appears to be 33.90 euros. Why are Amtrak tickets so expensive?

sokoloff 5y ago
I suspect largely because the ridership is so low. There were 3.5 million total Acela passengers in 2019 (chosen to avoid COVID effects on volume). Acela is only part of the Amtrak service offering, but it’s the part they tout as being the best Amtrak has to offer. Total Amtrak volume was around 32.5 million trips in 2019 (unclear if a round trip is 1 or 2 trips, but I assume 2). In any case, that’s slightly under 1 train trip (however they are counting it) per 10 US residents per year. From quick googling, the German comparables seem to be 151 million long-distance train trips for around 83 million people, or around 5x the total usage and 20x the per-capita usage.
bobthepanda 5y ago
Amtrak charges the market clearing price. There is quite frankly a fuckton of demand in the Northeast corridor with its 52 million residents along the one line, and not a whole lot of rail capacity due to the fact that Amtrak barely has money to keep the lights on and the NEC is 100+ years old and in need of significant capacity upgrades. (There are only two tracks connecting New York to the entire south and west of the country, for example.) Even at the very high Amtrak prices the trains run full.
spicybright 5y ago
If you converted Euros to USD based on today's exchange rate, that's 23.90 EUR = 27.61 USD 33.90 EUR = 39.16 USD As an american that's the lowest I've seen any kind of train ticket regardless of distance.
- cozzyd 5y ago
  Chicago to Milwaukee is ~$25, though that's only 90 miles.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    20 bucks from suburbs to boston round trip. ~18 miles one way.
- _delirium 5y ago
  I regularly travel DC-NYC for $29 on the Northeast Regional Amtrak train (225 miles, about 3.5 hrs). You do have to buy about a month in advance to get those prices though.
tyrfing 5y ago
That's slightly over the distance of PDX-SEA on the west coast, which is currently available for $28-47 depending on capacity. The equivalent bus trip (Greyhound) costs $22. The vast majority of people just drive instead. People doing anything except driving is unusual.
bsder 5y ago
I found European train tickets between popular/useful destinations to be just as expensive as airline tickets. And, generally, airline tickets were cheaper if you could put some advance purchase days into your schedule. When we were touring Europe (pre-Covid), we never had a city-to-city transition where the trains were significantly cheaper than air travel. I suspect this is a function of the popularity of the cities being connected.

sokoloff 5y ago

I suspect largely because the ridership is so low. There were 3.5 million total Acela passengers in 2019 (chosen to avoid COVID effects on volume). Acela is only part of the Amtrak service offering, but it’s the part they tout as being the best Amtrak has to offer. Total Amtrak volume was around 32.5 million trips in 2019 (unclear if a round trip is 1 or 2 trips, but I assume 2). In any case, that’s slightly under 1 train trip (however they are counting it) per 10 US residents per year. From quick googling, the German comparables seem to be 151 million long-distance train trips for around 83 million people, or around 5x the total usage and 20x the per-capita usage.

bobthepanda 5y ago

Amtrak charges the market clearing price. There is quite frankly a fuckton of demand in the Northeast corridor with its 52 million residents along the one line, and not a whole lot of rail capacity due to the fact that Amtrak barely has money to keep the lights on and the NEC is 100+ years old and in need of significant capacity upgrades. (There are only two tracks connecting New York to the entire south and west of the country, for example.) Even at the very high Amtrak prices the trains run full.

spicybright 5y ago

If you converted Euros to USD based on today's exchange rate, that's 23.90 EUR = 27.61 USD 33.90 EUR = 39.16 USD As an american that's the lowest I've seen any kind of train ticket regardless of distance.

cozzyd 5y ago
Chicago to Milwaukee is ~$25, though that's only 90 miles.
- spicybright 5y ago
  20 bucks from suburbs to boston round trip. ~18 miles one way.
_delirium 5y ago
I regularly travel DC-NYC for $29 on the Northeast Regional Amtrak train (225 miles, about 3.5 hrs). You do have to buy about a month in advance to get those prices though.

tyrfing 5y ago

That's slightly over the distance of PDX-SEA on the west coast, which is currently available for $28-47 depending on capacity. The equivalent bus trip (Greyhound) costs $22. The vast majority of people just drive instead. People doing anything except driving is unusual.

bsder 5y ago

I found European train tickets between popular/useful destinations to be just as expensive as airline tickets. And, generally, airline tickets were cheaper if you could put some advance purchase days into your schedule. When we were touring Europe (pre-Covid), we never had a city-to-city transition where the trains were significantly cheaper than air travel. I suspect this is a function of the popularity of the cities being connected.